Bach Sacred and Secular

JS Bach Cantata ‘Ich habe genug’, BWV82a JS Bach Cantata ‘Non sa che sia dolore’, BWV209 Bach’s famous cantata Ich habe genug takes its subject from the ‘Song of Simeon’, the biblical passage in which the aged Israelite recognises the infant Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah and declares himself ready to depart this world. The result is one of Bach’s most profoundly moving works, suffused with what has been described as ‘nostalgia for death’. The secular cantata Non sa che sia dolore bids a more cheerful kind of farewell, this time to one of Bach’s friends who was leaving town.